Marla Gillow

"I think the personality types match well with me - I would say that I'm organised, reliable and a good communicator. I think it is important to be a Coordinator when working as an engineer as you are always working with other people, so its important that you can work well with them and communicate well. It is also useful to have some qualities of an Influencer, as you need to be good with detail as an engineer, however you also need to be able to think outside of the box. It is useful to have qualities of a Manager, even if you are not working as a manager (I am not a manager myself). Even if you are not managing a team, it is good to be able to enable discussion amongst your colleagues, understand how to motivate them and yourself and be compassionate. "

"The main thing that I do is geotechnical design - this includes the design of the ground beneath roads, the ground either side of bridges, and the foundations for buildings. My work means that buildings and roads can be built knowing that they will be properly supported by the ground and not collapse. For example, I will carry out calculations to make sure that a bridge support will not collapse into the ground. This prevents damage to the bridge and potentially injuries to the people using the bridge. I most enjoy the varied nature of my work. Every project that I work on is different which keeps it very interesting. The type of soil within the ground varies across the UK, and even more worldwide, which means that for every project I have to work out a different solution. The starting salary for my role is around £27,000 per year. "

"I studied A-levels in Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Further Maths before going to university to study Civil Engineering. The job I am in currently is my first job since university. However I did several internships during my summers of university, including travelling twice to Japan for internships. I would really recommend doing internships/summer placements if you can find the opportunity, I found this very helpful in deciding that I wanted to be an engineer. I was inspired by an engineer who came into my secondary school to talk about her work on The Shard in London. I found her work fascinating and I knew that I wanted to work on high profile projects in the UK. "

"I am a cheerleader! I started doing this at university and I loved it. I was Captain of the team in my third year at university. I carried on cheerleading after I left university and I got to compete at the Copperbox Stadium in the Olympic Park, Stratford, London. When I was at university I was the one in the air (on top of the pyramid) but after I left I moved to be one of the people lifting up others!"

"I normally spend my days working at a computer, however this varies depending which project I am working on. Last year I was working on site, so I spent most of my time in the site office (these are usually portacabins in a field). I found working in the site office exciting as everyone who works on site (the excavator driver, the field engineers, etc.) passes through the office, so you hear about everything that is going on throughout the day. I also went out to see the site, which involved driving around in a 4x4 and supervising the site works. At the moment I am working from home because of coronavirus but normally I would be working from an office in London. I normally spend a couple of hours a day in meetings, discussing my work with my colleagues and receiving instructions or guidance from my manager. The remainder of the day is spent doing design work, for example calculations for a road embankment. These might be hand calculations or they might be done in Excel or using more sophisticated computer modelling software. I also spend time producing computerised drawings in AutoCAD. Sometimes I will be writing reports for clients, which involves analysis of data but also describing the history of the site, the areas surrounding the site, etc.As I have said, my work is very varied! No two days are the same. "

"A-levels: Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Further Maths.University: BA Civil Engineering, MEng Civil Engineering."